Alan Whitehead: I beg to move amendment 2, in clause1,page1,line22,at end insert
“which has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament”.
This amendment would prevent the Government from using powers under Clause 1 to implement an international agreement without the agreement having first been approved by both Houses of Parliament.
It might be a good idea, before proceeding to detailed examination, to say a few words—for the benefit and satisfaction of all hon. Members, I hope—about what we are trying to do with the amendments we have tabled. Members who have had a chance to peruse the amendment paper in some detail will see that all the amendments tabled by Labour Members are entirely consistent with the speedy and successful translation of our present arrangements with Euratom into UK law. I want to emphasise at the outset that the Opposition concur completely that we need a new set of nuclear safeguard regulations and arrangements, contingent upon other actions that may take place as far as the present arrangements with Euratom are concerned. We certainly do not wish in any way to impede the process of achieving that new set of arrangements.
What we do want to do, however, is to put on the face of the Bill a number of safeguards, understandings and clarifications about how that process will come about. That will therefore be the content of this debate. The Committee might find it helpful and of some comfort to learn that that is how we intend to proceed. Should Divisions occur, they will be about particular issues that we want the Bill to address; they will not be an attack on the Bill’s fundamental purpose. We want to clarify that point by including a purpose clause setting out what the Bill is intended to do when it becomes law.
The amendment relates to agreements not with Euratom but, we hope, with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The UK had safeguarding agreements with the IAEA before it joined Euratom, and they were effectively taken over by the UK’s accession to Euratom by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972, under which that translation was undertaken without the need for further domestic implementing legislation. The safeguarding agreements with the IAEA therefore have to be untangled from Euratom and made anew in the event that we complete the process of leaving the EU. It will be necessary to negotiate effective new safeguarding treaties with the IAEA, and that will depend to a considerable extent on what the UK does to put in place effective measures, contingently or otherwise.
What we do in this Committee today will be a material issue for the eventual treaties with the IAEA. I am sure that the IAEA will want to see that the UK has an effective safeguarding regime in place as a successor to what is presently done under the auspices of Euratom, and that it is as good as or better than what is presently operating in the UK on the IAEA’s behalf through Euratom. A starting point for the completion of those negotiations will be that we have something in place that works, is sufficient for the IAEA’s purposes and can be the basis for an assurance that those arrangements will be in place for any treaty we make with the IAEA to get us back to the pre-1972 position.
The explanatory notes state:
“The consequential amendments necessary to these pieces of legislation will depend on new safeguards agreements between the United Kingdom and the IAEA that are currently being negotiated; as such the United Kingdom will need to maintain flexibility to ensure these future agreements can be implemented in domestic legislation. A power to allow this legislation to be amended in this way is taken in clause 2 of the Bill.”
Not only will the Bill allow that arrangement to take place, but the IAEA will shine a light on the outcome of our proceedings, at the point at which those treaties—those new arrangements—will be concluded and put in place.
I am not clear exactly what sequence of events will be necessary to secure the circumstances under which a new treaty arrangement with the IAEA will come into effect, so perhaps the Minister could help us with that. Negotiations on a new treaty arrangement with the IAEA cannot reach a conclusion, or indeed start, before a satisfactory regime is in place. Does that mean, as I take it to in this instance, the establishment of the possibility of such a regime through the passing of this Bill into law, or the actual establishment of such a regime, which would require the completion of secondary legislation, proper funding, the establishment of facilities through the Office for Nuclear Regulation and all the other things that go with the full roll-out of a new treaty arrangement? If it is the latter case, we might be much further down the line before an agreement with the IAEA can come to pass, and it is conceivable that there might be a cliff edge at that point.
If the full secondary legislation and all the other elements of the new safeguarding arrangement set out in the Bill have not been completed, the IAEA might say to the United Kingdom, “Well, you haven’t got a regime in place yet, so we can’t complete the new treaty agreement that we have to undertake.” It is conceivable that at that point there would be a hiatus, because we would have exited the protection agreement for safeguarding through Euratom but we would not have a new agreement in place with the IAEA, even though we would be substantially further down the road of translating the purview of Euratom into domestic legislation.
I would be grateful to know the Minister’s understanding of the IAEA’s position. I am aware that at least informal discussions are already taking place with the IAEA, and presumably they will shape the eventual outcome of the treaty arrangement. In any event, the Bill will have be passed before any agreement with the IAEA is reached—that is the minimal provision. Whether anything else has to be done is a matter for further consideration, but the Bill at least has to be passed.
I think that it is germane to speculate a little on what the treaty might look like. Will it be sufficient to replace the function previously held by Euratom? If it is sufficient effectively to make our previous treaty anew, what additional obligations might its establishment place upon the UK? Of course, we do not yet know the answers to any of these questions, because we are not in a position to conclude the negotiations. Indeed, we are in the foothills of what I imagine will be a substantial mountain of discussion and negotiation with the IAEA before reaching a conclusion.
We understand the necessity of those discussions, but their position with the IAEA potentially puts the Committee in a difficult position as we undertake our consideration of the Bill. We are expected to agree to a measure that includes several Henry VIII powers, as well as some secondary legislation enabling Ministers to conclude the detailed business in the Bill effectively without further reference to Parliament. In many instances—it is by no means always the case—a Public Bill Committee would have before it drafts of the proposed secondary legislation so that it can see what it is signing up to. However, in this instance I can understand why that is not forthcoming. We are in the process of forming and shaping a completely new set of circumstances.  The Committee has no draft legislation or impact assessment to look at; in fact, we have nothing but the wording in the Bill.
In order to pass the measure, the Committee will effectively have to pass over the fact that we are also effectively being required to agree to agreements that have not yet been negotiated, and about which we know little. That is an extraordinary state of affairs, and the Committee needs to think carefully about it. I am not comfortable with the idea that, simply by waving through a line of legislation, we should pass over all the scrutiny that is clearly required.
Are we supposed to say, “Okay, we have passed the legislation, and we completely trust Ministers to get all the rest of it right”? That is not all; I am sure that present company would absolutely be able to get it right but, as we have seen, people do not always stay in their office for ever—in this instance, of course, I am sure that leaving office would be the result of promotion. However, we need to be assured that the provision will stand the test of time, over and above any question of an individual Minister being charged with bringing the Bill into full operation. That is particularly important in relation to what we are negotiating with the IAEA.
The clause is intended to capture at least a part of the process in question, for the purpose of Parliament’s oversight of the proceedings. It requires prior sight of, and agreement to, the international agreement with the IAEA, when it is concluded, before we can say that the Bill is finally under way as an Act. That in no way impedes the process of negotiation that has to take place alongside the Bill. I have already mentioned an understanding of, and assent to, the fact that the negotiations are taking place, even though we do not know exactly what they will consist of. It is right, of course, that we should shape future treaty arrangements with the IAEA so that they are as clear as possible at the earliest stage.
It seems pretty elementary to include in the Bill a provision that Parliament should look at that process and assure itself that it properly matches up with what we thought we were doing. We find ourselves in unique circumstances when discussing how we will bring about the regime change from Euratom to the UK. The amendment simply states that the Bill should guarantee a proper procedure for parliamentary scrutiny and discussion about what we are doing with the IAEA because of those circumstances.

Paul Blomfield: It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr McCabe. I hope to respond to the Minister with the same collaborative approach he has tried to set for the Committee, and I hope all our discussions will be along those lines.
It is worth saying at the outset that I do not doubt for one moment—I do not think any Opposition Members do—the Minister’s good intent in seeking to reassure us on this issue. However, it is also important to recognise in not only this discussion but the wider discussions we will have in our remaining sittings just what is at stake. On a number of issues relating to our negotiations on exiting the European Union, Departments have shown good intention, but because there has been insufficient follow-through, that intention has not necessarily produced the outcomes to reassure other sectors.
It might be in some other areas possible to blur things a little bit at the edges, but we need to remind ourselves of the evidence we had from Professor Matthews on Tuesday. Nothing can be left to chance here. Professor Matthews outlined that if we do not get the safeguarding regime right, the consequences are that,
“Springfields, which produces nuclear fuel, will stop working. The Urenco plant at Capenhurst…will stop working because it will not be able to move uranium around.”
He went on to say:
“It would be difficult for Sellafield and other decommissioning sites, such as the old research sites at Dounreay, Harwell or Winfrith; some of the work there would grind to a halt as well.”––[Official Report, Nuclear Safeguards Public Bill Committee, 31 October 2017; c. 43, Q88.]
There is a lot at stake in ensuring we get this not just more or less right but precisely right. That is one of the key factors behind our amendment. We must not simply be reassured in the Committee; Parliament needs to be reassured and to have the opportunity to express its view on this before we face the sort of consequences that Professor Matthews talked about.
The Minister has reassured us—again, I do not doubt his intention—on the full parliamentary scrutiny through the affirmative process. My reading of the clauses suggests that there is a bit more ambiguity. New paragraph (1B), which he referred to, says that the Secretary of State will not necessarily provide regulations but “may by regulations”, which gives quite a significant grey area. If the Minister is as sure as he indicated that there will be full parliamentary scrutiny by the affirmative process, the simplest thing to do would be to accept our amendment, which seeks nothing less.

Alan Whitehead: The new clause and amendments that we are debating in this group go to the heart of the Bill, and I shall explain why. I thank you, Mr McCabe, for ensuring that new clause 1 was in this group, rather than at the end of proceedings as it would be normally, because that allows us to discuss in some detail, around both the amendments and the clause, what goes in at the beginning of the Bill and what the Bill is about.
Our new clause 1, the essential part of this group, seeks to place a purpose clause at the beginning of the Bill. Hon. Members who have studied the history of purpose clauses in some depth may say, “That’s not usual; most Bills don’t have purpose clauses,” and it is true that most do not, but it is not the case that they never do; and I suggest, given what we have discussed on Second Reading and in Committee today, that to establish a purpose clause for this Bill would seem very sound and wise. For the record, a number of Acts of Parliament do have purpose clauses. For example, both the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 and the Education Act 2002 have substantial purpose clauses, setting out what the Act is about.
In this instance, the key issue about this Bill is that it is a contingent Bill. It is not like a number of other pieces of legislation, which simply require that we undertake certain actions to achieve a certain end. This Bill will not come into operation, should other circumstances take place. Indeed, on Second Reading the Secretary of State made it clear how the Bill had been prepared. He said:
“I can confirm that the Bill has been prepared on a contingency basis. The discussions around our continued arrangements with Euratom and with the rest of the European Union have not been concluded, but it is right to put in place in good time any commitments that are needed in primary legislation. Euratom has  served the United Kingdom and our nuclear industries well, so we want to see maximum continuity of those arrangements.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 617.]
I think the Secretary of State, in addition to making it clear that the Bill could be described as a contingent piece of legislation, was alluding to the fact that there are a number of sets of circumstances, which we do not yet know about but might in the fullness of time, that would effectively cause the Bill not to be operational although it remained on the statute book. Harking briefly back to our previous discussions, the Bill might conceivably be in the position that I described of other pieces of legislation that are full of provisions for secondary legislation—Acts that, because something else has happened that causes that Act and those provisions to become effectively redundant, stay on the statute book but are not further enacted. A purpose clause to make that clear at the beginning of this piece of legislation seems quite important, given the fairly unique status that this piece of legislation holds.
When I say that other things could occur, I mean that in the fullness of time, we might turn out to remain a member of Euratom. Even if not a member, the UK might conceivably have an association with Euratom such that the provisions for nuclear safeguards in the Bill might continue to be undertaken under the auspices of Euratom—not the Office for Nuclear Regulation as the Bill sets out. I will take those two possibilities in turn.
There are legal opinions and other opinions around, about whether Euratom is synonymous with the treaty of Rome and whether, therefore, the decision to exit the EU means that we must exit Euratom at the same time. After all, Euratom was in place marginally before the EU took shape originally and it was brought about by a separate treaty, not the one that caused the EU to come into being. Although there have been a number of arguments on the other side, it is true that, to all intents and purposes, that Euratom treaty has been absorbed into the doings of the EU in subsequent years. In a number of instances, such as the use of the European Court of Justice to undertake dispute resolution procedures within Euratom’s undertakings, one could certainly say that Euratom is fairly firmly stitched into what takes place in the European Union. However, it is by no means clear that it originated in precisely the same way as the European Union.
Our understanding is that the reason that the Prime Minister decided to include leaving Euratom in her letter to the European Union invoking article 50 was to pay particular attention to the issue of the ECJ as far as Euratom was concerned, and it was not done necessarily on, shall we say, universally agreed advice. Whether the very inclusion of that view in that letter itself causes us to exit Euratom in a way that we might not otherwise have done is a matter for further debate and conjecture; but there is at least an open question as to whether, should the UK continue to observe Euratom’s procedures exactly and agree to what it is that Euratom does in its entirety, there are circumstances under which membership of Euratom might be maintained.
I agree that, since 1956, no non-EU member has held Euratom membership, but I worry that that argument—this is a terrible Welshist analogy—is a little like someone going to a village, knocking on each door and asking what the name of the resident is, and everyone says Jones so they leave the last five houses out, on the understanding that everyone in that village is called Jones so they can go home. The fact that there are no members of Euratom who are not EU members will not necessarily always be the case in the future.
Still less equivocal is the idea that one might be an associate member of Euratom, or have an association with Euratom, which does the job that we are seeking to do concerning nuclear safeguards in the Bill. Although an association with Euratom would not have all the requirements and privileges of membership, it would nevertheless take under its wing the nuclear safeguards process that we have worked on through Euratom for a number of years, and that we would want to have in identical form in UK legislation for a number of years subsequently.
There are different circumstances around associate membership than there are around full membership. I mentioned that no non-EU states have full membership of Euratom, but some have what might be called associate membership, or various other kinds of association. It might be worth considering for a moment what those associations consist of. The Swiss associate membership of Euratom is certainly fairly limited; it covers some things, but it does not include the sort of safeguarding arrangements with Euratom that we might want to continue. The EU-Ukraine association agreement, however, does provide for extensive co-operation between Ukraine and Euratom. For those hon. Members who are wondering, article 342 of the agreement aims to
“ensure a high level of nuclear safety, the clean and peaceful use of nuclear energy, covering all civil nuclear energy activities and stages of the fuel cycle, including production of and trade in nuclear materials, safety and security aspects of nuclear energy, and emergency preparedness, as well as health-related and environmental issues and non-proliferation. In this context, cooperation will also include the further development of policies and legal and regulatory frameworks based on EU legislation and practices, as well as on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards. The Parties shall promote civil scientific research in the fields of nuclear safety and security, including joint research and development activities, and training and mobility of scientists.”
That clause comes pretty close to the idea of an associated nuclear safeguarding regime, which is what we are discussing today.
Some evidence, therefore, already exists that an associate arrangement with Euratom could cover that particular set of circumstances, and there is a further piece of evidence to bring to the table. Although wording on association with the European Economic Community has changed over the years, wording on association with Euratom has not changed since it was originally written in 1956. Any associate arrangement between the United Kingdom and Euratom would therefore be based on the 1956 wording, not on any subsequent version. Indeed, the drafters of the wording for association with Euratom clearly had in mind an association with the UK, which was a nuclear power at the time but not a member of the EU. Although that was before the non-proliferation treaty, the UK had a clear interest in association with Euratom, and the Spaak report of  1956 declared that Euratom should seek a tailor-made and “particulièrement étroite” association agreement with the UK.
Given that the wording has not changed, and that Euratom at its inception wanted an agreement, it appears substantially possible to resuscitate that approach 60 years later. We therefore believe that the Bill should make it clear that such alternatives are possible. If a Bill is said to be contingent, it is a pretty straightforward logical step to ask what it is contingent on. The Bill should include a purpose clause that states not only that it is contingent, but what it is contingent on and the circumstances under which that contingency should continue.
Our other amendments all follow from that central point. Before I speak to them, I hope the Committee will consider just how central it is. Whether or not the Committee is minded to accept our other amendments, I hope it will agree that a purpose clause at the beginning of the Bill would set things in proper order.
I am aware that we are reaching the magic hour of 1 o’clock, Mr McCabe. I fear I cannot do justice to our other amendments in 90 seconds, so I propose that I should do so after lunch.